


the bars all close at 10 in hell

by brandywine421



Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Lovers to Friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:48:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23129545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brandywine421/pseuds/brandywine421
Summary: Murdock turned up with her pizza on week two of her return, a shit-eating grin on his face and a bite mark on his throat."Pizza guy didn't do that to you, did he?" she asked, not taking the pizza or letting him inside."Nah, but it's a good story, promise I got all my shots, too," he replied.  "And a six pack of beer, if you're feeling up to a visit."
Relationships: Jessica Jones/Matt Murdock
Comments: 10
Kudos: 114





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Flash!fic, written over a couple of days to try and get back in the swing of things after a couple of misfired ideas, well, misfired. Mashed together to make, hopefully, a happy little fic.

_Called to the Devil and the Devil said quit_  
_Can't be bothered_  
_Better handle your shit_  
_Keep about your wits man, keep about your wits_  
_Know yourself and who you came in with_

* * *

She had a couple of drinks. Maybe, occasionally, she had a couple more, but it was nothing to worry about. Nobody's worried about it but her, and not really, just, offhand concern at her own life and choices, so nothing new. This wasn't new.

She's back in town, her tequila sabbatical a failure after a fucking 'plus one' hotel credit pinged one of Trish's paparazzi stalkers and got her followed, but not quite chased, out of the tourist traps into the gutter. At least it had been familiar and she had enough drinks and heart to hearts with pretty boys and trashy girls to make it worth the trip.

Whatever, she got it out of her system and she was back - back in town, back to black, back street - whatever, the hardass version of coming home was.

She didn't know what she had left other than a reputation, one she didn't want to research too deeply. Paps still had her on file as Trish's hanger-on, Hell's Kitchen still remembered her from snapping Kilgrave's neck and the rest probably knew her as Jeri's muscle.

Fuck 'em. 

Malcolm was solid, so far, and had done right by Alias Investigations, offering her the chair back with circles under his eyes but a ledger fully in the black.

She had a little cash left so she turned him down, at least until her rent ran out and she had to deal with social interaction outside of the bodega and pizza deliveries. She wasn't ready to be friends again, she needed to believe she wouldn't ruin it, she needed to figure out how she kept ruining it.

* * *

Murdock turned up with her pizza on week two of her return, a shit-eating grin on his face and a bite mark on his throat.

"Pizza guy didn't do that to you, did he?" she asked, not taking the pizza or letting him inside.

"Nah, but it's a good story, promise I got all my shots, too," he replied. "And a six pack of beer, if you're feeling up to a visit."

She figured he didn't really count as a friend, so she could give him a chance.

She thought he'd drink fancy beer, not cheap fratboy shit but the blind asshole was full of surprises - and the mouthy meth-head that took a chunk out of his throat really was a good story.

It didn't remind her of the mess of her life, or the gaping hole where Trish was missing, or the idea she'd built up of Trish - the hole was still the same size no matter what the missing piece was made of in the end. Matt didn't fake his laughs, didn't pretend that she was funny when she was being a dick on purpose and definitely couldn't judge her life and choices considering the new scars he couldn't hide under his day or night suits. He had wicked shards of fresh scar tissue on both palms of his hands _(it took a few weeks for her to see the matching ones on the soles of his bare feet)._

Murdock was almost as much of a mess as she was and - fuck - she had fun drinking cheap beer and talking shit with him. Fun had been a foreign concept for a while and that was the only excuse she had for punching his digits, day and night, into her phone.

She didn't need an excuse to harass him the next day when she found the Mouthy Meth-head video on YouTube.

* * *

It took a couple of night outings for her to catch on that he was showing off for her. Cocky flips with that crooked smile that tweaked long dead butterflies in her collapsed lungs. A fucking mating display, with showy moves and flashes of that body that would fit under her hands like she was fucking Goldilocks looking for a bed.

But that double spin kick to the face was a winner - sex in a bottle rocket. It was definitely the spin kick that brought her fingers to her mouth to whistle, catching his attention halfway through a left hook that would make his daddy proud.

Cops were called, assholes were taken to jail or the hospital, and she lured Matt back to her apartment and made fun of his stupid mask until he let her pull it off and fuck up his hair.

She liked he way he giggled behind his teeth when she tackled him, never frightened or horny for her super-strength, never pushing her limits of play.

It was fucking hot and when she kissed him, he laughed softly around her tongue and pushed both hands into her hair to make sure they were on the same newly erotic page.

Watching him wail on bad guys was enough foreplay for her, but he had a total touch and taste kink that took a little getting used to. Fucker could get off with heavy petting if she let him take his time but patience wasn't really her thing.

So he let her jump him between Daredevil showtimes and she let him cuddle and kiss when she didn't have the mad itch to ride him until he saw sparks from his fucking fire-vision.

She liked to fuck, but he liked to maintain - balance, control, whatever, but she learned just how to pinch and when to bite to make him lose hold and give her a taste of the Devil.

He made coffee when she forgot to kick him out and she brought donuts and used all the hot water if she woke up in his fucking slippery bedsheets. 

Maybe it would work since they didn't start as friends.

* * *

  
He toppled through her window, and sometimes her door, unsteady in his Devil boots or his work shoes, sometimes from a concussion or a night out with the work-friends - maybe that was too harsh. Nelson and Page were more than 'work-friends', they were Matt's family and yeah, maybe she resented the beams of sunshine and strength he basked in when he wasn't slumming with her in the shadows.

Not that she'd ever tell him, not when he always included her in his invitations for nights at the bar or a rare dinner and movie with his 'coworkers'. Hell, he even tried dragging her along to his stupid church to meet his nun friends but she wasn't going to ruin his faith with her bitterness, not when it helped him in all the ways it had never helped her.

Faith in a higher power would always be his thing, never hers and - she was fine with that. She needed to fix herself instead of waiting for someone else to help - she didn't need any fucking help when she was still alive to help herself. 

She liked it when he was drunk more than concussed, he was more likely to curl up with his head on her shoulder or in her lap. He would 'allow' her to play with his hair or search for his alleged 'one ticklish spot' and lazily banter with her until he was ready to fuck or nap, whatever they made it to first.

It was easy and fuck if she didn't go out of order - their chemistry made them great lovers but - friends, fuck, she wasn't looking for friends when she hadn't made up with the ones she'd almost lost yet - fuck.

Matt was a great lay and had become enough of a friend for her to maybe unclench her fists and reach out. She didn't want to waste the possible fuck or the friendship.

She called Malcolm and set up a coffee and contracts date, wrote a letter to Trish with three whole sentences and Googled Luke to make sure he was still un-indicted and alive. She even followed Danny Rand on Instagram, just to be fair since Malcolm said he sent her flowers and a stuffed bear a few days after she ran off to Mexico. _(Matt gravitated to the fluffy thing, hiding it around her apartment so she'd find it when she was looking for tampons or mustard.)_

She was careful not to make a big deal, or mention her actions to Matt at all, couldn't have him thinking he was a crutch. Couldn't have him carry any of her baggage when he wasn't crumbling under his own.

If he could do it, fuck, she could do it, too.  
  


* * *

  
She thought her return was going okay, better than okay, considering Malcolm paid her much better than she'd ever paid him (she called it being an employee but he called it 'going on vacation' but whatever, affording name brand beer was a game-changer).

Her life was okay. She was okay. Everything was completely okay until it wasn't.  
  


* * *

  
She knocked on Page's door and left knuckle-marks of blood that she tried and failed to swipe away before the blonde opened her door.

"Jessica?"

"You can't have him." It's not what she came here to say, let alone slur, but the night's been too long and her nerves are too raw. "I won't let him die for another fucking ex."

Karen, the bitch, didn't even deny it, only stepped aside so she could see those goddamn boots hanging off the too-short couch.

"He wouldn't stay at the church so his mother called me. I don't think she has your number and - he's not in his right mind. Frank says - "

_"Fuck."_

Karen snorted. "Right, keep that consult to yourself, they don't associate with each other unless they're unconscious or homicidal; but he says he just needs to stay hydrated and let the drug wear off. Some kind of LSD that's passed through skin."

She leaned over saw the inflamed patches on his throat and cheek, conveniently the exposed parts of his body through his stupid fucking suit. "Is he asleep or unconscious?"

Karen threw up her hands. "Mix of both, we dosed his juice with Benadryl and got about a pint of fluids into him between IVs - he's ripped out four in three hours."

She laid her hand across his forehead and his nostrils flared, but his mouth turned down in confusion and his eyelids fluttered - but he didn't wake up and Karen let out a relieved breath and mediated glare. Jessica moved away from the couch. 

"Do we need to talk?" Karen asked, raising a fucking eyebrow like she was a fucking cop or a real detective. Damn, that eyebrow was good, though, Jess couldn't hate on her skills.

"Ew."

"I didn't deserve what you said. He's - like a brother to me, and it wasn't always that way but that's the way it is now. I'd die for him, too, so fuck you," Karen said, placing a shot glass down across from her with a muted thump.

"I'm fucking this up. Fucking him up. Fucking me up. Always," she said.

Karen settled at that and filled the shot glasses with a cheap whiskey that reminded her, distantly, of her grandfather. "I thought you guys had moved into the talking phase already, is it you or him?"

"Can I lose what I don't have? Is that the question?"

Karen blinked at her. "Are you all right?"

"I don't know. I thought - he's been coming to me when something happens, I thought - shit. I'm sorry," she sighed.

"Do me a favor, move into the talking phase. He's - "

Matt shifted, letting out a low moan, no, a name - _"Elektra, please - "_

Karen waited until Jessica released a breath and drained the shot. 

"He's not himself, he almost made Foggy cry and didn't recognize Sister Maggie - kept asking for Father Lantom and he - "

"Damn. Can I - " Jessica started to stand up but Karen shook her head.

"You can stay, but don't wake him up and maybe, wash your hands," Karen said, reminding her of how her argument with the bathroom shower had ended up.  
  


* * *

  
She didn't take off and she didn't hide from the discussion. Things always changed and she needed to learn - _fucking_ \- something from all her mistakes.

He brought it up first, after Karen had ducked out to 'not' see her soldier boy-toy with commitment issues _(so maybe she didn't hate the blonde after a few hours of venting about assholes and then reality TV because fuck boys)_.

"I like spending time with you," Matt said. "As a friend, and more when you're into that, but I - don't want to ruin things and, well, I'm really good at ruining things."

True, they had that in common. "You work with your ex."

"Exes," Matt corrected. "Is that - "

Huh. No wonder Foggy was so overfuckingprotective. "She said your mother called her. I don't know your ma."

"Yeah, you do. It's - not my secret to tell, but you know her. You don't like her, but, nuns, you know?" Matt shifted uncomfortably.

_Fuck_. "For real?"

"We don't discuss the whole 'mother' thing. Karen and Foggy are fixated on it, but - she's a friend, nothing more," he said, one of those accidental lies that she couldn't fault him for. Sometimes it took a while to believe things that were true as fuck.

"Friend."

"I can do friends," Matt shrugged. "Son, partner, boyfriend - more difficult, but friends - I can handle that."

"What if I want, fuck, more than friends?" She clutched at his sleeve and he caught her fingers, gotcha, tactile little fucker.

He leaned in, accepting the invitation. "You'd have to be nice to my exes, and the Sister."

"Yuck," she said, chasing his mouth and catching his jaw. "What else?"

"Well, I'd give you a key to my place and start buying more dinners and less drinks," he smiled, darting his tongue out to wet his lips and giving her the opening she wanted.

* * *

_Called to the Devil and the Devil said_ _"Hey!  
Why you been calling this late?  
_ _It's like 2 A.M. and the bars all close at 10 in hell, that's a rule I made"_  
_Anyway, you say you're too busy saving everybody else to save yourself_  
_And you don't want no help, oh well_  
_That's the story to tell_


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

  
She, maybe, uploaded a couple of shots of Matt napping in her bed, his thigh and that ass, but mostly his thigh and totally not his face or anything Daredevilly at all - she was too smart for that. But she, maybe, got texts from Misty, Luke and Danny Rand before she sobered up enough to regret it.

She wasn't keeping count or anything, but it had been a decent few weeks since they decided to make it 'more than friends'. The mood swings, his not hers, were a learning curve that she was trying to get a handle on - Nelson said it was because of Lent and his current abstinence from gelatin - but she had a sense it was more than that.

The seasons were off, it was spring and winter and fall all at once and Matt was a living barometer if you left him unattended for too long. He wasn't allowed to listen to the air or the rain at her place.

He paced and was generally out of sorts and she was sober and restless and maybe a little guilty so she confessed that she'd Instagrammed his thigh.

"Did you make it all artistic and shit?" He asked, not processing the point of the confession. "Or just a dick pic?"

_Wait_ , maybe there was a different point. "Are there dick pics? Am I allowed - "

"No - absolutely not. But my thigh, is that something I should be concerned about? I have skipped a few leg days at the gym," he frowned, fingers going toward the string in his sweatpants.

"You looked fine, that was apparently the problem - got all kinds of assholes sniffing around," she sighed. "What do you know about dick pics?"

"All messages with photo attachments are automatically forwarded to Foggy or Karen, depending on who upgraded my phone most recently," Matt said. "So dick pics are, like, an office event when I'm in a relationship. They'll send you a calendar alert and everything, sometimes we have nachos."

Oh wow, maybe she loved his friends after all. "Who sends a blind guy dick pics?"

"We all have regrets, Jessica - now, what's wrong with my thigh?"

"I'll make sure I'm extra artistic with the next one," she said.

He frowned and turned his radar on her. "I'm telling Foggy."

* * *

Luke was busy trying to be a bigshot baller without getting arrested or, well, killed but he made time to 'get the scoop' and took her out to lunch once she made the ride to Harlem.

She wasn't sure he was on the right _path_ but it was slightly reassuring that each of the 'Defenders' was so great at fucking up their own shit. He was well on his way to fucking up his shit.

She didn't ask many questions and he didn't offer any actual information but the gossip session was entertaining. Misty and Colleen were _allegedly_ trying out the dating thing, too and doing much better at domesticity than she was with her Devil. They always used doors and answered phone calls and didn't leave weird fingerprints all over the walls and windows from listening to air currents.

Claire was seeing some kind of asshole that Luke definitely wanted Matt to know about - she figured he must be a decent guy if Luke needed backup digging up dirt on him. Good for Claire.

He didn't say much about Danny, or Misty apart from the hookup info, only Claire and a few names she remembered from the neighborhood.

She didn't want to worry about him, but she wondered if he needed to be worried about.

Matt, _massive fuckup of a man_ , was the only one of the Defenders with long term vigilante and crime-fighting experience - that had stayed out of jail and mostly legitimate at least. Luke respected Daredevil's reputation too much, and considered Danny a baby brother too much but he was keeping the link with her open.

Jessica would keep her distance and mind her own business - for now.

* * *

"How's the kid?"

Matt hummed, half-awake with most of his attention tuned into the open window. "Disappointed we're dating, says he hates that we can't all be single at the same time so we can go clubbing. Doesn't want to play third wheel."

"Huh." Clubbing with Danny, not a thing she wanted to think about too much. Huh.

"He's lonely, I think his BFF stayed in Tokyo for a while with a girl." He twitched, hearing something and shifting his muscles in anticipation.

"It's too late for patrol," she warned, splaying her hand over his chest. She liked feeling the rumble of his heart even if it wasn't the same as the pulsing drum that he heard with his magic ears. "Is he upset about Colleen and Misty?"

"He's been playing third wheel since he got back, so not upset, just - restless. I'm going to kick his ass tomorrow after work, he's buying me dinner."

"Not ninja related?" she asked and he snapped his full focus to her. _Shit_. "Seriously?"

"There's no way you know that, we agreed I wasn't tagging in on his drama," Matt frowned. "Did he - "

"I was joking, but _wow_."

Matt flopped across her lap, fucking up her sheets. She had been making the bed all the time lately to keep things neat for him, and maybe a little because she liked watching him mess things up. "He asked Luke, who said no, and Colleen and Misty are leaving the country in a few days. He needs to talk and I only agreed to listen and advise - no tagging in."

Yuck. "You can't just let him twist in the wind, that's not who you are."

"Depends on what he's getting into," Matt hummed.

She considered it. "You'll tell me, though?"

"If you want me to, sure," he shrugged. "Why? Do _you_ want to tag in?"

"Fuck no, keep your ninjas. You gonna tell Danny how you got those scars on your hands and feet?"

He stiffened and she slid her fingers down his spine until he took a breath. "Nothing to do with him. You got questions, Jess?"

"Nah. I'll figure it out," she said.

He clenched his jaw. "It put me down for three weeks, it's not a secret. Danny sent me a bear just like yours when I was laid up."

Ouch. "I guess you're closer with him than I thought."

He pushed himself up to kiss her. "Nah, closer with you than any of those punks."

She kissed him again and let herself ask. "Tell me, then."

"I'm not a snitch. Castle and I have our problems, keep wandering into each other's way but - we haven't had any problems with the Neo-Nazis since everything went down," Matt said. He flinched toward the window again. "Somebody's stealing a car three blocks away."

"Tune down before the car alarm blasts you," she warned and he relaxed slightly. She was learning his tricks, fucking puzzle wasn't that hard. "Why are you even fucking with Castle?"

"He's in Hell's Kitchen, he has a truck, and sometimes I need a ride. But I'm not hunting for trouble, with Danny or Castle, I'm totally doing better now," Matt said.

"Says the guy who got dosed by with super-LSD by a gang of drug traffickers, what, three weeks ago?" she laughed, pinning him to the bed.

**Author's Note:**

> On a Rainbow Kitten Surprise jag, title and lyric tags belong to those folks.


End file.
